Can soft music give staff will to live?

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epa02173448 Foxconn employees work on the production line at the Foxconn Lunghua plant in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen in Guangdong province, 26 May 2010. The chairman of Taiwan’s Hon Hai Group flew to China on May 26 to try to stem the spate of suicides by workers at one of the firm’s factories which has shocked the Chinese public. Terry Kuo flew in his private jet to Shenzhen, where the company’s Foxconn Technology subsidiary has a plant employing 420,000 workers. He brought along several psychiatrists to team up with Chinese doctors in seeking to a way to stop the suicides at the factory. EPA/YM YIKYm Yip/ EPA

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The parents of a Foxconn employee who died in January show a picture of their son as a tenth worker takes his own lifeVoishmel/AFP/Getty Images

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Foxconn workers walk on a footbridge outside their factory in the township of Longhua in the southern Guangdong province May 27, 2010. An employee of iPhone-maker Foxconn jumped to his death late on Wednesday, Chinese state media reported, the tenth suspected suicide this year at the high-tech company’s huge production base in southern China. REUTERS/Bobby Yip (CHINA – Tags: BUSINESS EMPLOYMENT)Booby Yip/Reuters

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Workers leave the factory in the break time at the Foxconn complex in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen Thursday, May 27, 2010. A young man became the 10th worker to jump to his death at a Foxconn Technology Group factory in the city, just hours after the company’s chairman toured the plant that makes iPods and other top-selling gadgets, state-run media said. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)Kin Cheung/AP

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epa02173471 Ma Zishan (C), Gao Zhao Ying (R) and sister Ma Li Qum (L) mourn the death of their son Ma Xiang Qian at the Foxconn Lunghua plant in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen in Guangdong province, 26 May 2010. Ma Xiang Qian, an employee of the tech firm Foxconn Technology Group, has died after falling from a building in Shenzhen in January 2010. The chairman of Taiwan’s Hon Hai Group flew to China on May 26 to try to stem the spate of suicides by workers at one of the firm’s factories which has shocked the Chinese public. Terry Gou flew in his private jet to Shenzhen, where the company’s Foxconn Technology subsidiary has a plant employing 420,000 workers. He brought along several psychiatrists to team up with Chinese doctors in seeking to a way to stop the suicides at the factory. EPA/YM YIKYm Yik/EPA

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Company staff members stand at the balconies of residential house at the Foxconn complex in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen, Southern city in China, Wednesday, May 26, 2010. The head of the giant electronics company whose main facility in China has been battered by a string of worker suicides opened the plant’s gates to scores of reporters Wednesday, hours after saying that intense media attention could make the situation worse. (AP Photo/Kin Cheung)Kin Cheung/AP

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epa02173448 Foxconn employees work on the production line at the Foxconn Lunghua plant in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen in Guangdong province, 26 May 2010. The chairman of Taiwan’s Hon Hai Group flew to China on May 26 to try to stem the spate of suicides by workers at one of the firm’s factories which has shocked the Chinese public. Terry Kuo flew in his private jet to Shenzhen, where the company’s Foxconn Technology subsidiary has a plant employing 420,000 workers. He brought along several psychiatrists to team up with Chinese doctors in seeking to a way to stop the suicides at the factory. EPA/YM YIKYm Yip/ EPA

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epa02173442 Foxconn employees work on the production line at the Foxconn Lunghua plant in the southern Chinese city of Shenzhen in Guangdong province, 26 May 2010. The chairman of Taiwan’s Hon Hai Group flew to China on May 26 to try to stem the spate of suicides by workers at one of the firm’s factories which has shocked the Chinese public. Terry Kuo flew in his private jet to Shenzhen, where the company’s Foxconn Technology subsidiary has a plant employing 420,000 workers. He brought along several psychiatrists to team up with Chinese doctors in seeking to a way to stop the suicides at the factory. EPA/YM YIKYm Yik/EPA

Asia Business Correspondent

Last updated at 9:48PM, May 27 2010

Foxconn appeared to be losing control of its spiralling suicide crisis last
night after another employee of the world’s biggest electronics assembler
attempted to take his own life.

The man’s lonely bid for self-destruction — the twelfth such attempt among
Foxconn assembly-line workers this year — was made only hours after the
death of a 23-year-old employee.

The suicides have all taken place at the same vast complex in Shenzhen, where
management efforts to stem the tide are, as yet, proving futile.

Psychologists and experts in suicide have begun to talk openly of a “mass
hysteria” among the 350,000 mostly migrant workers